Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Congratulations to Draymond Green for winning the Defensive Player of the Year Award, to Warriors GM Bob Myers for winning Exec of the Year and to Klay Thompson for the fan's award of Performance of the Year, all announced at the NBA awards.

With Kevin Durant winning the Finals MVP and often touted as the best player on the Warriors (perhaps the best or second best in the NBA), last year's unanimous league MVP seems obscured if not forgotten.

But the fan award of Assist of the Year to Steph Curry suggests his visible contributions to the Warriors championship season. Let's not forget that when KD went down with what was feared to be a season-ending injury, Steph Curry led the Warriors on an epic winning streak that provided the confidence to go into the playoffs without fear.

And while KD got the attention and made key plays, Curry in every game made vital contributions in whatever ways were most needed. In the Finals especially he may not have dazzled with so many of the 3s he had displayed throughout the season and in the early rounds, but he rebounded, he passed, he drove to the basket. Maybe the Warriors wouldn't have won the championship without KD, and maybe they would have. But they would not have won it without Steph Curry.

That's as much for his contributions that weren't visible on the TV screen. Steve Kerr called him the heart and soul of the team, the one player who defines who the Warriors are. The Warriors wouldn't be who they are without Draymond and Klay, and KD has become part of that dynamic. This Ramona Shelburne piece at ESPN says it all eloquently. At the center of it all is Steph Curry.

If the basketball world has been looking elsewhere, Warriors fans have not. Steph Curry is clearly the most popular player, the one people want to watch. They got more game to watch this year, as the video above suggests.

But basketball is over, and unfortunately there's only baseball. It's hard to believe that the San Francisco Giants are basically the same team that had the best record in baseball going into the All-Star break last year. This year they may yet have the worst, though the Phillies are again making that particular run.

This has to be the earliest in decades that the Giants have been out of playoff contention. The Pittsburgh Pirates are having a down year but they've still got a shot, thanks in part to the even more epic collapse of the Cardinals and the rough start of the Cubs.